How It Started
In June of 1987, a small group of strangers gathered, in a San Francisco storefront, to document the lives they feared history would neglect. Their goal was to create a memorial for those who had died of AIDS, and to thereby help people understand the devastating impact of the disease. This meeting of devoted friends and lovers served as a foundation of the NAMES project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Today, the Quilt is a powerful visual reminder of the AIDS pandemic. More than individual 3-by-6 foot memorial panels, each one commemorating the life of someone who has died of the complications related to AIDS, have been sewn together by friends, lovers and family members. This is the story of how the Quilt began.

Activist Beginnings
The Quilt was conceived in November of 1985 by longtime San Francisco gay rights activist Cleve Jones. Since the 1978 assassination of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, Jones had helped to organize the annual candlelight march honoring these men. As he was planning for the 1985 march, he learned that the number of San Franciscans lost to AIDS had passed the 1,000 mark. He was moved to ask to ask each of his fellow marchers to write on placards the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS. At the end of the march, Jones and others stood on ladders, above the sea of candlelight, taping these placards to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looked to Jones like a patchwork quilt. Inspired by this sight, Jones made plans for a larger memorial. A little over a year later, he created the first panel for the AIDS Memorial Quilt in memory of a friend Marvin Feldmen, to whom the Quilt is dedicated. In June 1987, Jones teamed up with Mike Smith and several others to formally organize the NAMES Project Foundation. Public response to the Quilt was immediate. People in each of the US cities most affected by AIDS, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, sent panels to the San Francisco workshop in memory of their friends and loved ones. Generous donors rapidly filled "wish lists" for sewing machines, office supplies, equipment and volunteers. As awareness of the Quilt grew, so did participation. Thousands of individuals and groups from all over the world sent panels to San Francisco to be included in the Quilt.

The Inaugural Display
On October 11, 1987, the NAMES Project displayed The AIDS Memorial Quilt for the first time on the National Mall in Washington DC, during the National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. It covered a space larger than a football field and included 1,920 panels. Half a million people visited the Quilt that weekend. The overwhelming response to the Quilt's inaugural display led to a four month, 20-city, national tour for the Quilt in spring 1988. The tour raised nearly $500,000 for hundreds of AIDS service organizations. More than 9,000 volunteers across the country helped the seven-person traveling crew move and display the Quilt. Local panels were added in each city, tripling the Quilt's size to more than 6,000 panels by the end of the tour. The Quilt returned to Washington DC in October 1988, when 8,288 panels were displayed on the Ellipse in the front of the White House. Celebrities, politicians, families, lovers and friends read aloud the names of the people represented by the Quilt panels. The reading of names is now a tradition followed at nearly every Quilt display. In 1989, a second NAMES Project tour of North America brought the Quilt to 19 additional cities in the US and Canada. That tour and other 1989 displays raised a quarter of a million dollars for AIDS service organizations. In October of that year, the Quilt was again displayed on the Ellipse in Washington DC. By 1992, the AIDS Memorial Quilt included panels from every state and 28 countries. In October 1992, the entire Quilt returned to Washington DC, this time in the shadow of the Washington Monument. To reflect the global nature of the AIDS pandemic, this display was titled the "International Display". And in January 1993, the NAMES Project was invited to march in President Clinton's inaugural parade. Over 200 volunteers, including representatives of national AIDS organizations and Leanza Cornett, Miss America 1993, carried Quilt panels down Pennsylvania Avenue in the parade. The last display of the entire AIDS Memorial Quilt was in October of 1996. An estimated 1.2 million people visited the Quilt when it was shown again on the Mall. Covering the National Mall from the Washington Monument to the grounds of the US Capitol Building, the Quilt occupied an area equal to 24 football fields and weighed more than 50 tons. Some 2,500 new panels were added to the Quilt over the three days it was shown putting the total number of panels displayed at more than 40,000. Over 10,000 volunteers came to Washington from around the world to make the display happen. For the first time since it was started, a US President, William J. Clinton and Vice President, Al Gore visited a display of an entire Quilt.

The Quilt Today
Today, there are 45 NAMES Project chapters in the US and 36independent Quilt affiliates from around the world. Since 1987, over 13,800,000 people have visited the Quilt in thousands of displays worldwide. Through such displays, the NAMES Project Foundation has raised over $3,000,000 for AIDS service organizations throughout North America. Currently 50 miles long if all 3'x6' panels were laid end to end, The Washington DC displays of October 1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, and 1996 are the only ones to have featured the Quilt in its entirety. The Quilt is the largest example of a community art project in the world. It has redefined the tradition of quilt making in response to contemporary circumstances. The Quilt was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. "Common Threads: Stories From The Quilt" won the Academy Award as the Best Feature-Length Documentary film of 1989. "A Promise to Remember", a collection of letters to The NAMES Project written by panel makers, was published by Avon in July 1992. In September 1996, Simon and Schuster released a book "Always Remember", a retrospective of panels created by and for a spectrum of international fashion designers. For more information on The NAMES Project and The AIDS Memorial Quilt, visit the national web site at www.aidsquilt.org. A memorial, a tool for education and a work of art, the Quilt is a unique creation, an uncommon and uplifting response to the tragic loss of human life.

The names on the Quilt represent approximately 19% of all US AIDS deaths.

Isn't it time they were all remembered?